Fragile
by whispers of willows
Summary: Even the strongest women break - What would have happened to Angell if Flack had died instead? AU. Flack/Angell with hints of Mac/Stella.


AN: I'm going to edit this later. So, if you find any mistakes, just please ignore them...they **will **be fixed. It's just it's 6 in the morning here and I've been working on this since 1 am. I'm a bit beat. Ha. So, if you haven't noticed before, this is a Flack/Angell piece. Definitely AU. This is based on an actual happenstance which will be apparent to you as you read. Anyway, I looked it up and it's a legitimate occurence. It can happen. And I made up what happened to Mac when his wife died the bottom. That was just me improvising.

Anyway, please let me know if you enjoyed this! If not, let me know that as well. **Remember, I will be changing this later so...check back if you liked it and see the alterations if you want. :)**

**Disclaimer - I don't own Flack, Angell, Mac, Stella, Hawkes or Adam.**

* * *

_9:37 am, May 14, 2009_

I was sitting right next to him. Breathing the same air, seeing the same reflections and shadows dart across the ceiling. His eyes were open at first, clear but somehow distant. He never looked straight at me, but through me, as if he saw something beyond my silent pleas that left in little wisps of prayers from my downcast mouth. I tried to memorize every detail, hoping it wouldn't come to relying on simple memory to see him again. Alive. His crooked tie and cocky grin plastered on the walls of my mind like posters, a masterpiece in their own right.

I held his hand, hoping for a miracle. But it never came.

It was 9:37 in the morning when his eyes closed, his fingers wilting like blood-crushed petals in my vice grip. I screamed for help. I called his name. I prayed for God's mercy, that he would just spare him, let him limp out of that hospital with a sore chest and armed that incessant, cantankerous mouth of his that used to get on my nerves, but now seemed so precious as he began to scatter at my knees. A sacrifice. Ashes blowing away in a casual brush of wind.

All it takes is a second for a woman in love to unravel. By right, I'm a strong woman; growing up in a harsh world does that to a girl and her fairytale dreams and I was no exception to the rule. But with one staggering blow, she was knocked to her feet. Some numb creature took her place, sitting outside those double doors with my knuckles turning chalk-white beneath a devastating grasp. I needed to anchor the warmth of his hands to me, root the memory of them into my skin.

When they walked out of those doors, the fingers clenched harder and I rushed to my feet. I felt my pulse slow, my breath catch. The surgeon slowly shook his head without a word to spare and all I could do was stand for a moment, the world blurring around me.

_You should come and say your last goodbyes, Detective Angell._

Time seemed to stop when he died, as if it had paused out of respect in its perpetual wandering to watch as Donald Flack's last heartbeat played out like a swansong against a blood-red scene.

* * *

_9:45 am, May 21, 2009_

"Jess, you shouldn't be here."

He wasn't looking at me the same way he used to. Pity had replaced that teasing glow I'd grown used to in the few years I'd known my hard-ass boss. Somehow losing someone made you the object of unspoken condolences, as if there was no way to word it. _Hey sorry your pal bit the dust, Jess. Here's a nice pat on the back for not breaking down and crying all over the crime scene, you know?_

I'd gotten that same look in seven different forms in the last week. The hardened shell of Mac's grief-stricken apology. A streak of compassion threading through Stella's soft eyes. Lindsay's muted empathy as she put a quiet hand on my shoulder. Adam tripped over his own words, giving up after he saw the expression on my face and decided all that he could offer was a drained sort of half-sigh. Sid and Hawkes couldn't bear to even confront me on the matter, but I felt their gazes on my back as they, in silence, felt sorry for the girl who'd lost her closest friend.

"Where else should I be? I work here, don't I?"

"You've been given a leave of absence," he said. "Take the time to let it all out. You need to grieve, Jess….we know Flack was a good friend to you. A good partner. Losing him must be hard."

"No, what I need is to work. I need to get my mind off of everything that's happened."

He was quiet for a split second and I took the opportunity to escape. But as I moved past him he caught my shoulder and I prayed to God that he'd skip the commiseration.

"The funeral's next week-"

My heart twanged.

"-I just wanted to let you know….everyone's gonna be there. Nobody's missing it, all right?"

I just nodded, hoping it be a sufficient enough reply to let me pass. He nodded back and released his grip, letting his fingers trail softly down my arm.

* * *

_12:00 pm, May 28, 2009_

The ceremony was long. Longer than I could bear, but I stayed through it anyway. For the sake of Don's memory and my own future sanity, I swallowed back those insistent tears that seemed to choke me. It was hard to breathe and I felt every last resonating heartbeat prattle my unmoving bones. I felt guilty…guilty for being alive when he was dead. Guilty for not being there when he laid down his life for the persistence of justice. When he was being lowered into the ground with only a collection of red rose petals and a prayer to send him on his way.

It was much easier to endure, standing there alone, after his sister, the spitting image of him, had finally gone. With my goodbye note tucked into the crook of my arm and a handful of orchids tucked into my folded fingers, I felt some odd, misplaced calmness that flooded the senses and rooted me to that very spot, kept me there before I lost the will to do what I had to do to say my last farewell. I blew a kiss up to him, hoping he was up there to catch it as it fanned across the sky, like a breath of a ghost through the wistful fingers of a feather-soft wind. Only I knew he loved purple orchids best…

_If you're gonna like a flower, Jess, I say like something pretty….something delicate. It's like a test of masculinity; I'm not afraid to like something way down there on the cute and girly spectrum every once and a while. I mean, if you're going to love something beautiful, if you're going to invest your time and heart into something, you might as well know what you like and be sure of it. You know?_

"Yeah, Don," I murmured to the wind. "I know exactly what you mean."

The breeze seemed to rustle at my ankles for a moment before slipping away.

* * *

_9:37 am, June 26, 2009_

It was a little over a month since he died. The pain was worse than ever and after the numbness was gone, that steady thrum of half-life fading from my existence, I found myself drifting into some lifeless stupor at three in the morning more often, staring at the empty space beside me.

_His_ space.

The pillow still smelled like him, but I didn't realize that for a while. Even when I caught the trace of his sweat and cologne lingering in the pillowcase one night, when sleep seemed too far away to dull the senses, I wouldn't let myself give in to such desperate behavior. I wasn't weak. I was sure that I couldn't be broken with one measly pillowcase and a half-empty bed.

But it was only when I drifted into my first nightmare….the first night I relived his death in my dreams. I woke to find the rain tapping on my window, dull and gray as it slithered down the darkened panes, and his pillow was still just as hollow beside me. I broke down, pulling it close to me, letting his scent fill my head and lull me into a false sense of comfort.

I could only imagine his arms around me, his soft snores echoing across the quiet room, but it was enough for now.

* * *

_9:50 pm, June 30, 2009_

"When was the last time you slept?"

Mac was looking at me from across a dead body, three feet of bloodstained carpet and a myriad of shattered glass surrounding the corpse, glittering like stars in a dormant sky. Shadows, like brushstrokes, seemed to dominate his features and his tired, red-rimmed eyes. He, too, was having trouble sleeping; it was both a rush of relief and a wave of sympathy that surged through me all at the same time, leaving me weak in its overpowering wake.

I managed a smirk. "Isn't that Stella's favorite question?"

"You're not supposed to be here, Jess." He said, his eyes still transfixed on me. They weren't so hard, the usual potency of his gaze lost in the stretches of exhaustion that seemed to line the edges of his war-weathered face.

"So I've heard," I sighed and turned my attention towards the man on the floor, trying to ignore the dizziness that began to pulse through my head. The room began to slowly spin, like a carnival ride. _Flack used to love that one ride on Coney Island, the one that spins you round and round and…_

I shook my head to rid myself of the reminder and the dizziness intensified, spreading its frail fingers through my overwrought brain. "So, from what I've gathered, the vic is a Bryan Matherson. CEO of his company, Matherson and Son…but apparently he's got a business partner."

Mac looked away for only a second. He became nothing more than a splash of navy blue color against the blood-stained wall in half the time.

The second half of that instant flitted past and I found myself on the ground. Barely conscious.

_Jessica! _

_Jessica!_

The world stopped spinning.

* * *

_12:30 am, July 1, 2009_

"_It's not serious. Just a bad combination of exhaustion and vertigo. After what she's been through the past month, I'm not surprised…losing a loved one can cause enough stress to trigger the vertigo and her insomnia only aggravates the condition."_

_Mac looked away from the sleeping woman behind the half-opened blinds. "Will she be all right?"_

"_She'll be okay. I'm prescribing a low dose of __dimenhydrinate to help with the motion sickness ,but I'm afraid in her current condition she'll have to battle the insomnia herself."_

_His brow furrowed as he caught the hint of insinuation in the doctor's voice. "__**Current**__ condition?"_

* * *

_2:26 am, July 1, 2009_

It was very quiet when I opened my eyes, the only sound a repetitive beeping somewhere next to me. The lights were dimmed and outside the painted white door a voice filtered through the loudspeaker, sounding otherworldly to my drowsy ears. I tried to sit up, but a hand stayed me; looking over to my left, I saw a familiar face. Mac was looking at me, a gentle spark in his eyes.

All of the sudden, I became aware of the slight ache in the back of my head. I rubbed at it, irritated. "What happened?"

"You took a little tumble," he said. As he spoke, I noticed how hoarse his voice was. Looking at him, the tautness was visible in his mouth too, stretching his lips into one thin, harsh line. "That's what you get when you don't sleep."

"Thanks, doc," I retorted. "I'll keep that in mind next time someone I know _cacks off_."

"You need to take care of yourself, Jess. Flack would want that for you…for you to be okay."

I cast a glare his way. "Well, for once, Flack isn't going to get what he wants…not for now. I don't know about you but…I find it hard to be okay when the one person that made you happy is gone. There's no getting him back. There's no digging him up and saying sorry for not being there when the bullet hit. There's no saying I'll miss you. Nothing. He's just _dead_."

"No, he's not…he's alive, Jess," he said, and for a moment my heart thrilled. _But I saw him die…I watched the light go out of his eyes. _Mac leaned forward, looking straight at me. "He's alive in you."

"Don't give me that corny bullshit!-"

"No, Jessica," he said, his voice stern. He stretched out his arm and settled the palm of his hand over my stomach. "He's alive _in you_."

* * *

_3:25 am, July 14, 2009_

"Jess…"

I was pulled from a turbulent nightmare, lured away from the dark ambiguity that sleep had become since that fateful May morning, some two months ago. It was a voice that enticed me from the dream-wrought catacombs, something as familiar as a memory, but too genuine to be mistaken for drowsy afterthought.

"Jessica…"

It was a man. Of at least that much I was certain. A man that I knew, but the voice was one I hadn't heard in a long while. A warm palm pressed itself against my cheek and I could feel the callus graze the skin; I was too afraid at first of chasing away this welcomed haunt to look at him, but as the ethereal touch of his lips swept against mine, I knew it was only the invention of a starved mind lying next to me. I opened my eyes, facing my own conscious defeat.

"Don, you're not real."

His gaze, darkened by the shadows, flickered even in the gloom. "I'm as real as you make me, Jess."

"That's the problem," I whispered back. "You're either a figment of an overactive imagination or a symptom."

"Symptom?"

"A sign that I'm losing my mind."

He chuckled softly and let his hands fall to my shoulder, where they scanned the expanse of my arm until reaching my hand. As soon as I felt that tell-tale callus meet my hungry fingers, I took it into my grip and kissed the make-believe knuckles.

"Babe, you're not losing your mind. You're the sanest person I know…and I should know, right?"

He chuckled again, one of those bouts of laughter that delve deep into his imagined humanity and made me feel like he was really there. I knew he wasn't, I couldn't feel his true warmth, but I was willing to let myself pretend for a while…anything to see him again.

"I'm pregnant…having a baby," I said. "_Your_ baby. About six and a half months, you'll be a brand new dad. You should be proud up there."

"_We're_ having a baby, Jess." He corrected.

"You're not here. Don't try to persuade me that you are because I know you aren't."

He sighed against my knuckles, the synthetic breath skirting against my fingertips. The apparition pressed a light kiss against them as he spoke, "I'll always be here. I might be maggot meat by now but…I'll be here as long as you don't forget me."

A half-hearted laugh bubbled to the surface, spilling over as it became entangled in the tendrils of air around us. It sounded alien coming from me. "I think that's the corniest thing I've ever heard you say, Don."

"And here comes another one…ready for it?" He laughed, taking a breath, as if to brace himself for impact. "I missed your laugh. Haven't heard it in a while, and it's good to know you haven't forgotten how."

"I think that one takes the cake."

Another rumbling chuckle threaded through the apparition's chest. I pressed myself against him, my stomach still inconspicuous as it aligned with his torso. His arms fell around me, soft as satin and just as see-through. I found myself wishing they were real, the same strong manacles that held me close to his warm, breathing body; I'd have traded anything to hear that same maddening snoring that used to keep me awake in the early gray hours of the morning.

"If it's a boy, he'll be just like you. Donald Flack the third and all. He'll have your eyes and your hair and your nose…"

"God, I hope not," the apparition sighed mournfully. "The poor kid, having to look like his deadbeat dad."

"That's not funny." I replied.

He looked down at me and caught the flashing warning in my glare. "All right, all right…I'll lay off the sarcasm. Your wish is my command."

"That's still sarcastic."

"What can I say? I'm programmed to be a bit of an ass."

"Only a bit?" I quipped.

I felt my eyes grow heavy as a comfortable silence formed between us, the first authentic need for sleep that I'd felt in a long, long time. My arms tightened around him. "Don't go, okay? You're not allowed."

His chuckle echoed through me. I found myself wishing it wasn't just the resonation of memory trailing through my aching bones.

"I'll be here…promise, kiddo," he whispered against my hair, pressing one last kiss into the disheveled mess. "I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

_11:30 am, July 21, 2009_

"Nothing like the sound of retching first thing in the morning, eh sunshine?"

I hadn't heard that voice since its first appearance. Nine days before, when my brain had decided trickery was the only way to soothe the slow-burn agony of loneliness that plagued my every dream, every step. It had been enough for a while, a brief spell of relief that ended all too soon as the first encounter with morning sickness roused me from dreamless, superficial sleep. Nausea throttled my insides and twisted them into odd shapes; I could feel my stomach writhe under the strange new pressure.

"What are you doing here?"

"You seemed to need me." He replied casually. As if it were natural. As if it should have been obvious.

I spat a wad of residue into the soiled water, wiping at the corners of my mouth with vicious intent. "This is your fault. _You_ did this to me."

The apparition chortled good naturedly. "Honey, didn't your mother ever tell you that it takes _two_ to do the horizontal tango? I seem to remember you enjoyed it almost as much as I did, if not _more_. Then again, I am dead…my memory might be a little faulty."

"You _bastard. _Cramps, bloating, morning sickness and vertigo and all you can do is crack death jokes in front of your grieving girlfriend?"

"You're right. I'm a jackass," he sighed a little, and the faint sounds of shifting limbs seemed to originate somewhere on my left. My apparition was sitting on the edge of the tub. "What can I do to make you more comfortable and, preferably, less angry at me?"

"Moving my hair out of the way so I don't get puke in my nice, neat ponytail would be a _great_ start." I suggested.

Everything about him still screamed sham, but I couldn't bear to let such a frail hope wither before it even began to bloom. When Don's memory was here, I was okay…I could function. Sleep came a little easier; I could stomach television again, even if it was only for a little while.

My stomach thrashed again as his translucent hand gathered my hair at the back of my head. And as I leaned over the toilet, his hand in my hair and his soft mutterings of console wafting through my delirious ears, I couldn't have been more content if I tried.

* * *

_2:00 pm, August 17, 2009_

It was getting harder to believe that I'd already been pregnant for a little over four months, but it seemed the proof was growing more and more apparent by the day. I was showing already, the long expanse of baby bump in the flat place where my washboard stomach used to be, and even through the impenetrable doldrums a glow began to emerge from the murk. I was secretly happy and nothing but losing the little one was going to douse the newfound ease.

Even as I walked toward the clinic my hand unconsciously found the swell and settled comfortably on the small island. "We'll be all right Donnie. Won't we?"

I was not surprised to feel a small kick in response. Only a few days before I'd been lying in bed, late at night, struggling to find some semblance of sleep amidst the tap of the rain and the howl of the wind and the incessant whir of the traffic outside my locked window. The shadows danced wildly on my dark wall, indented with the flowing pattern of rain on the dreaming glass. I couldn't chase even the slightest wink.

I had sighed and turned over. A look to my left told me my apparition was dormant too. All the company I seemed to have was the little one below me, sitting idle in his warm cocoon. "I don't know too much about motherly things yet but…I know you're in there." I had been quiet a moment, wondering if I should expect some sort of reaction. "Can you hear me?"

That first strong kick was enough to put my constantly turning mind to rest.

I entered the automatic doors and met the secretary at the front desk. She redirected me to the third floor, where I'd meet a Dr. Kendrick to have my first ultrasound and checkup. While waiting in the lobby, with only elevator music and a hand on my stomach to keep me occupied, an elderly woman walked in with her silver hair all a mess, evidence of sleep still tucked into the thin tresses. She took one look at me and seemed to scowl; I was no simpleton. I knew what she'd implied the moment she looked at me the way she did.

I'd already had a response cooked up by the time the triage nurse had called me in for prep.

"Dead beat dads. Can't live with them, can't live without them…you know what I mean?"

The woman said nothing, but the disapproving frown on her lips seemed to curve downward even more as it deepened and I followed the triage nurse inside the hall, hiding a small defiant chuckle behind the palm of my hand. The half-hearted manifestation of mirth seemed to trickle into my veins and carry into my stomach; the baby gave a little kick in retort. Don would have been proud.

Half an hour passed with only the offered comfort of the little one inside to entertain the empty intervals of wasted time. I was so used to the rush of detective work and the constant hyperawareness that came with the job that this ennui had become an uncertainty, an unfamiliar face. I didn't trust anything that I couldn't figure out on my own…it was why my relationship with Don had been such a drawn out process. As I sat there waiting in that small room, every muscle taut and my mind ready to spring at the first sign of danger, half of me wished that I had been a little more trusting. More time with him seemed so precious, now that it had ceased to exist…

The door opened suddenly and a woman dressed in black slacks and a white coat walked in, a clipboard under her arm. "Miss Angell, how are we doing today?"

I patted my round stomach softly. "We're surviving."

"Eighteen weeks?"

"Just about." I replied, eyeing her with some measure of distrust as I peeled back the hem of my shirt.

"This'll be a little cold." She warned, squirting a large amount of blue-tinged gel on the exposed skin. I gave a little startled sound, out of sheer surprise, as she rubbed it in and rolled the ultrasound machine closer to where I was situated. The woman switched it on and pressed the probe against my stomach, frowning as she focused her harsh blue eyes on the screen. If I had been unsure, if I had not known my baby was alive, I'd have suffered such enormous unrest as I sat there in that concentrated silence.

It was a moment before her smile worked up enough courage to flourish, a reluctant bud in the midst of spring's first bloom. But there it was, as plain on her face as anything I'd ever seen. "There it is," she said softly, turning the monitor toward me so I could see. "Your baby."

It was sudden, that first strike. A mixture of wonder and disbelief, that something so beautiful could exist. But there was the proof, the reality, black and white on that monitor. I watched as the little figurine kicked slightly in response to my racing heartbeat, feeling the sensation only a moment later. There he was…my little miracle baby. The last shred of Donald Flack that I was entrusted to keep safe, to nurture…to love.

In a matter of a few months, the hollow sort of anguish that Don's death had left in me had numbed a little more to make room for my new visitor….my safe haven.

* * *

_11:58 pm, September 4, 2009_

"You're going to be okay, Jess," came that haunting voice. More real than it had been before. "You won't lose it."

Sweat trickled down my cheek, disappearing into the fabric of a thin cotton nightgown. I couldn't remember when I'd been in so much pain, when death had seemed in such close proximity. My breathing came in short, labored gasps, as if I'd lost all ability to breathe at all. But as another crippling bout of pain tore through me, all thoughts were scattered; I let out one short-lived scream and hugged the swell of my abdomen. I wasn't going to lose it…not when it was all I had left of him. When I was so close to seeing it.

"How the hell would you know?"

"I only know because you know. It'll be okay," he said, settling into that empty space and resting one hand on my head, clearing away the cobweb strands of hair that stuck to my damp forehead. The other went straight for my stomach, as if it knew exactly what to do, how to comfort me, how to trigger the quiescent tears.

"Why couldn't you have stayed?" I mourned, struggling with all the strength I had left to stifle an insistent sob. His fingers were still too faint to be real. "_Why_ did you have to die and leave me here all alone?"

"It was my time for me to go, baby…I couldn't do a thing about it and you know that. This is just the pain talking…you'll be all right."

"Stop saying that!" I cried, wrenching his hand away from my stomach. "If all you are is a piece of my imagination, then you know it's not going to be okay! You know I'm going to lose my baby…that I'm going to lose you forever. You know that what you're saying is a lie…and yet you say it anyway."

"If I'm saying it to you, then you know, in your heart of hearts, that you're going to get through this okay because this is just an apparition…I'm only capable of saying what you think, what you feel, of being the way you remembered me to be. I can only grow for as long as I am remembered."

I let myself completely go, freed from the shackles that pride and self-sustainment had set on me long ago, to protect me from the only cold, hard truth the world seemed able to offer. Melting into his imaginary arms, I began to gasp for breath as the sobs wracked through me. The apparition accepted me into his embrace.

"It'll pass…hush, baby…it's okay…you're okay." He whispered little tendrils of soft, assuaging composure into my tangled hair. His voice was as real as ever…just as vaguely surly and loving as I'd remembered it, the tinge of his accent breaking the serenity of his soft intentions. There was not a hint of irony in his words, in the varying shades his voice seemed to encounter as he murmured so tenderly to me.

For once, Donald Flack was free of mockery.

But only because I had wished him to be.

* * *

_2:15 am, October 21, 2009_

He had been right. It had passed and the baby had miraculously lived…to be exact, I had been right. Apparently, the traumatic aftermath of Don's death had stressed not only me, but the poor little creature that I was supposed to be keeping safe until he was ready to leave, resulting in an all too realistic near death experience for the little one. Almost as soon as I had heard of my astonishing recovery, I wandered the teeming sidewalks of New York City until I found a bookshop, watching as the world passed by in a plethora of varying colors. From the ostentatious scarlets of sports cars to the faded, spotted browns of old junk on wheels, everything seemed as beautiful as a dream. My prayers for mercy had been answered about six months too late, stored away when the next opportunity came…but I'd never been so relieved that it had been later rather than never.

Knowing nothing about babies had seemed to distress me after my close call and lead to a startling revelation: I was four months away from my due date and knew absolutely nothing about absolutely everything. On my first round of nonchalantly ambling down the aisle containing the entire stock of baby books and guides for new parents, I collected at least ten manuals on the basics that ranged from how babies are conceived to perfecting the art of Lamaze breathing during labor.

I bought all of them.

Even knowing Don was probably watching over me as I stood at the check-out line with ten books under my arm. Even knowing he was probably laughing his ass off and having a grand old time at my expense.

And yet I bought them anyway.

Over time, I had ventured out into the bookstores that riddled New York's sidewalks and contributed to my menagerie of manuals and parenting guides. Out of what strange compulsion, I'd yet to find out. Doctors seemed to attribute it to pre-baby jitters. Sort of like the same nervous energy you get on your wedding day. I tried to ignore it or convert it into some form of excitement, even as I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the steady thrum of traffic below. Like a heartbeat. Like a steady mantra, going over and over in my stubbornly wakeful mind.

"You need your rest, sleeping beauty." He said.

I snorted, but ignored his statement altogether. "Tell me, why is it that each time you come around you sound more real? More like you're here every time."

"I guess it's up to you to figure that you. You're the origin of my halfway existence, if you could call it that."

"Can you feel anything?" I asked, and looked over at him. The light on the nightstand was on, a sort of gold-washed light pooling on his exquisite features.

But it was the familiar blue eyes that struck me the most, those eyes that I could wade through like some vast ocean and lose myself in their lively, colored depths. I could suffocate underneath the current of their changing tides, die in some watery otherworld that was only his, a realm of his imagining, and nothing on earth could compare to lying in his arms, falling gently asleep watching the flowing tendrils of light in his eyes sashay across those soft blue irises of his. They were enough to make any girl weak in the knees, their intensity, their intentions. But me, I guess I had always been the exception to his rule…I chose to drown in them instead.

"I feel you," he replied, touching his palm to my cheek. "Does that count?"

"No."

"Then I guess since you're the one playing God here, why don't you inform me of what I can and _cannot_ feel?"

"Can you feel sadness?" I asked, searching his eyes. "Happiness?"

He seemed to look through me, a sad little half-smile unfurling at the edges of his mouth."I told you…I am only as intricate as you make me."

"Can't you try?"

"Baby, I'm not real…look." He took my hand and pressed it against his cheek. Too soft to be human skin, still too abstract to have earth-bound roots. "Nothing. There's nothing here but figments of your mind. Your memories of what I used to be."

"So if I told you to feel this…" I forced his hand against my protruding stomach. "Then you'd feel it?"

"Yes." He murmured, his fingers lightly grazing the skin beneath the nightgown. "Yeah…I can feel it. Can it hear me in there?"

"I don't know. Try to say something."

He cleared his throat. "Yo, _son_."

I chuckled, meeting his expectant gaze. "What if _it _turns out to be a _she?_"

"Oh, right…don't want to be sexually partial or anything," he said, then cleared his throat again. "Yo, _daughter_."

"Don, you never cease to amaze me with your…poetic nature."

"It won you over, didn't it?" He grinned, resting his cheek on my bellybutton.

"No, I think it was the dark intensity and wild sex that won me over."

He laughed and the sound surprised me. It sounded so astonishingly alike to that hoarse, sort of awkward laughter that Don kept secret for only me to know about…the only fragment of his gangly teenage years that he'd managed to retain long after they'd passed into blessed nonexistence. He'd never been proud of it, but I'd always cherished it, a little piece of him that he entrusted to me. Now, it was as cherished as ever; but what astounded me was how real it sounded as it bounced off the walls and melted into the plaster, a forlorn recollection of how things used to be.

When he was alive.

"You should sleep." He muttered against my nightgown. "I'll tell you guys a story if you promise to turn off that light and lie down."

I did as he said without a word, switching off the lamp and settling on my back once again. I sighed, my wordless communication letting him know I was ready. In response, he settled down over me, his cheek pressed against my middle and his arms winding loosely around me like lifeless vines.

"Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince named….Rutigard."

"Rutigard?" I sputtered, fighting a stubborn smile.

"That's right, Rutigard. But let _me_ tell the story, kitten," he teased, then cleared his throat as he continued. "And this handsome prince, why he was the hottest dude in all the land. But not only that, he was smart because…looks aren't everything, kid. Let me tell you that from first-hand experience…"

"Anyway, this Rutigard, well…everyone called him Rudy. And one day, Rudy met this beautiful princess with a mean mouth and a backside to match. He fell in love with her immediately and declared to all his princely friends that he would marry her before the week was out. But this princess, she was a little wary of Prince Rudy's intentions…she didn't know whether this guy knew exactly what kind of firecracker he was dealing with, you know what I mean? So this Princess, let's call her…Jacqueline….Jackie for short. Jackie decides that she's going to make Prince Rudy crazy. Send him mixed signals and all the like….well, it took a long time of flirting and witty repartee of the useless kind for Princess Jackie to see that she really loved Rudy too. And you know what? Rudy was all the more happy for it, that he had to work to earn her love and not just get it hot off the platter like every other girl he'd ever met in his life time."

I couldn't help but smile as I lay there in the dark, listening to his homespun tale. It hit close to home, knowing exactly who his fictitious characters were in their real-life portrayal. It had been our story, though we were far from princes and princesses….just two kids from the Bronx with nothing but their hard work and determination to show for.

And I realized how far it had brought us…only to gun us down in the end.

* * *

_3:01 pm, November 30, 2009_

"Are you ever going to visit my grave? You know, it's kind of drab…none of my favorite orchids, no Valentine's chocolate boxes to liven it up…"

"Valentine's isn't until February, Donald." I replied patiently, a small, victorious smile draping over my mouth.

Don was sitting in the chair next to me, one arm thrown over the back and the other propping up his head as he watched me crochet. He never asked me how I know how to crochet….I assumed he just _knew. _Perhaps he'd found out when he was alive and never told me. Perhaps he'd known all along.

"Yeah, you're real cute, knowing all your dates and everything. Very adorable…I could kiss you but…you know, I can't. That's becoming a problem for me…I'm not sure I like not being able to kiss my girl."

"Then go ahead. Kiss me." I said, turning my attention back to the small hat I was working on.

"Jess," he said, his voice becoming abruptly stern. "You should remember me the way I am…which is _dead_. You know, the body they buried in that casket back in May? It's still there."

"No, you're here. Just where I want you."

"This delirious look just isn't working for you, baby. I prefer you sane."

"I'm sane. In fact, I'm more sane than I've ever been."

Don sighed and got up, going to the window, where the world was beginning to pull on its winter gray. Trees had long since relinquished their green-gold hues, trading them in for barren boughs. The first snow had already fallen, coating the walks in its tangible halo. My due date was only a month or so away and, already, most of the anxiety had begun to dissipate.

"Jessica, I'm dead serious."

"Really?" I chuckled, shaking my head. "Don't you tire of the death jokes?"

"No, but it seems you don't either…or else you would have me stop. Isn't that right?"

"Your choice…you're a big boy. You can filter what stays in your brain and what comes out of that big, loud mouth of yours." I said, scowling as I tugged on a stubborn thread.

"Jessica, do you _hear _yourself? This isn't normal…this isn't right!" His voice filled the small room, the rigid surliness rolling in thick, insistent waves through the tepid quiet. "Don't you get it? You _have_ to let me go. I'm not _real. _Nor will I ever be. I'm dead and gone and that's just the way it is…you're going to have to accept that. I mean, for god's sake…you're having our baby soon! Do you want them to take it away? _Our_ baby? Taken from you because they find out you're talking to your _dead_ boyfriend?"

A knock sounded at the door. Our heads snapped toward it simultaneously.

I looked to Don. "We can't discuss this right now…"

"Stop talking to me…he'll think you're crazy."

I bounded toward the door as carefully as I could, balancing the weight of my stomach with my overeager feet. Over the last month or so, I'd begun to accept calls from the team, who seemed so entirely relieved in knowing I'm alive and well and living in my old apartment, the one I'd shared sometimes with Don. Mac had recently taken to visiting me, bringing pickles and ice cream and anything else that seemed prone to being the object of a pregnant woman's arbitrary cravings.

Mac was standing in the empty hall in a snow-speckled pea coat, a gallon of ice cream tucked under his arm like a peace treaty. I greeted him with a whole-hearted smile, even in the presence of his inquisitive gaze.

"Hey, Jess…"He craned his neck, peering into the empty apartment. "Who were you uh…talking to?"

"Oh, just a friend. She called a few minutes ago to ask how the baby was doing. I had her on speaker so…I apologize if you had to hear any of our crazy banter."

He seemed to relax a little, even though Mac's auto pilot seemed to run a little more tightly, more tensely, than the rest of us. "No, that's all right. I just wanted to check on you. See how you're uh…" His eyes caught mine. "Holding up."

"I'm okay…as okay as I'll ever be." I replied, shrugging my shoulders with casual indifference.

"Well, let me be the first to tell you, Jess," he gave me a small smile. "Time does heal all wounds."

"And ice cream heals the temporary ones?" I teased. He seemed to laugh as I invited him in.

But the smile faltered as I watched Don emerge from the white noise behind me, no longer just static in the background, selfishly devised to heal my broken heart.

* * *

_8:23 pm, December 23, 2009_

It wasn't as late as I'd have expected when I felt the first contraction reel through me like a rip in a seam. It startled me awake from a listless dream and I sat up too fast, my head beginning to pound from spastic movement. Don was there in an instant, telling me to stay calm while I dialed Mac's number…he left it behind only a few days before, reminding me to call when the contractions started.

Well, three days and one false alarm later, labor had finally begun. And I was sure as hell petrified like they said I'd be.

As soon as I heard Mac's calm, weary resignation, a small fraction of the immense fear seemed to vanish, but it wasn't enough to keep me calm.

"All right, we can do this. We can do it, right? I mean, we've survived maniacs. We've braved the streets of the Bronx. We've…stuck out those stakeouts and they were boring as hell! But we did it, didn't we? C'mon, what's a little contraction compared to a gunshot wound?"

"You want to trade places?!" I said, casting him a glare he would not soon forget.

"No, that's okay…I think you've got a pretty good handle on the situation," he said, backing away slowly. "I'll just sort of let you take the reins."

The pain was shearing now from the mass of agony it had been a second before, only little ribbons that snaked through my insides, coiling around them like little spoken threats. They promised more, that there was no escape…God, I couldn't wait to get to the hospital for that epidural.

Mac rushed in not ten minutes later and, luckily enough for me, there was not a hint of agitation on his calm, hardened face. He helped me from the bed as carefully as he could and into the elevator, where he let me lean on him as a particularly painful contraction seemed to tear away at my insides as easily as if they were mere paper. I tried to hold back a scream; I wasn't successful.

"It's all right, Jess…let it out," he crooned soothingly, cautious as his fingers caught in the tangles of my hair. "I know you're in pain."

"Well, geez…why can't I be as supportive and level-headed as Detective Mac Taylor over here?" Don said from behind us, following us as we hurried for the car. "He seems to know what he's doing and I have no clue."

You and me both, honey.

* * *

_11:27 am, December 24, 2009_

"He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Don murmured as he leaned over the bed, his usual hard, calculating stare softened into mild adoration, his doe eyes peering over the bundle of blue blankets and into the small, soft face buried in the midst of the fabric.

"Isn't he?" I whispered back, taking a peek at Mac to make sure he was still asleep. He had been the only one allowed to stay after the others were chased out not two hours before. But, after a long night of having his hand crushed to a pulp and staying at my side until that baby was born at 9:37 am exactly, on December 24, he needed his rest and so I let him be.

A Christmas baby; Don's favorite holiday.

"Donald Flack the third. And I never thought I'd live to see the day…." He paused, laughing for a moment. "Well, I technically didn't. So this is all just a mental simulation for me…I'm watching from above. Surveying the damage."

"You're alive enough for me." I assured him.

He remained silent for a moment. "You're never going to visit my grave, are you?"

It was such a mournful question, as if it were the determination of not only his lonely fate, but of mine as well. A well-disguised question that concealed the real inquiry, the question he meant to ask but didn't have the heart to speak aloud.

_Are you ever going to come to terms with the fact that I'm dead?_

It was a simple question, but such a complex answer. To give up even my own mind's version of Don was going to be too hard to imagine. I wouldn't be able to do it, not with a new baby to take care of, who would rely on me for everything.

I couldn't. I _wouldn't_.

"For now, no….I'm not." I replied, candid as I could be without coming across as harsh. He slipped back into that mournful quiet and I knew that I hadn't only just hurt him…but myself as well. The independent, strong girl I once knew had completely withered away, leaving that pitiable creature that I thought I'd left behind the moment Don had died.

It seemed she had stayed on longer than I'd expected.

I was looking down at little Donnie, asleep in my arms, when Mac seemed to stir beside me. I glanced over at the weary figure, slouched in that same sort of quiet acquiescence he'd always worn without complaint. The death of his wife, the cruel aftermath of war…he wore them constantly.

A reminder that some scars never heal.

"Hey," he said, his attention switching between me and the baby. "How's everyone doing?"

"Sore. And, apparently, we're very tired." I said, gesturing to the sleeping figure in my arms.

Mac grinned, looking up as a nurse bustled in from a rather empty hall.

"All right, time for the little guy to get some proper rest," she announced, coaxing little Don from my grasp. "You too Miss Angell. You had one _hell_ of a night."

"I can see him again soon, can't I?" I asked, receiving only a reassuring nod in return.

Out of some strange sense of gratitude, I nestled as comfortably as I could beneath the thin, starched sheets and scratchy blankets, feeling safe under Mac's watchful eye and with the unhappy haunt roaming the corridors of the hospital, somberly following the nurse's trail.

* * *

_2:05 pm, February 19, 2010_

Don was angry with me. At least that I was sure of. He had disappeared again, probably hiding in the bedroom as to spare me his anger in Mac's presence.

Mac was holding the baby. Another fact I was certain of, considering the lack of weight in my arms and the tears that lay like a thick film over my cheeks, making them feel sticky and hot to the touch. My face was buried in the palms of my hands, and I felt the callus of them scrape the vulnerable, flushed skin.

There was one last certainty in this world that seemed to be the most vital in my current situation….Mac was angry with me too. Because I'd failed, because I didn't know what to do. I was warned about post-partum depression, but it wasn't until now, as I sat there with the callus of my hands working over my tear-streaked face, that I realized I needed Don here to save me…and to keep me from inadvertently killing my only child.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Jessica…" Mac stood over me, a sentry almost as he walked back in forth, the baby in his arms. "You used to be this strong woman…nothing could break you. Look at you…look at you now!"

"Mac I've…" One of my hands fell away, draping itself limply over my knee. "I've lost everything. My best friend. My sanity….my independence. I just…don't know what to do anymore."

Mac was silent as I heaved one shaky breath and pulled it back in, one cleansing motion.

"I need your help."

He knew I was alluding to something, but as to what I was referring to, he didn't know. Donnie crooned softly over my head as Mac seemed to break his trance and sigh, meandering, defeated, to the window where the snow was falling in fragile, windswept wisps of white.

"I think I know what you're going through…" Mac murmured, and I almost didn't hear him. But he seemed to weigh every theory that entered his mind with great care, taking the time to put Donnie in his swing so as to have a serious conversation with me, to let me just…let everything go. Bare my soul to him.

Because no matter how much I wanted to deny it…I'd become dependent on Mac in the last few months. He was like a father to me. Vigilant. Kind to me when I needed sympathy and stern and rigid when my strength failed, when I needed a rock to lean on. He was there for me…and I trusted him. He had gained my confidence and never faltered.

He seemed to fall into the cushions of the couch as he sat down in the seat adjacent to me, even as he slid gracefully into place. "When I first lost Claire, I…I saw her. Felt her when she wasn't there. I was a sane man entertaining the world, the existence of a lunatic, and Stella saw it. But I wanted to stay this way forever, stay there because that was where Claire was…and I had promised her, when she was alive, that I'd follow her to the precipice of forever. Wherever she would go, I would follow. For weeks I let her haunt me, let her ghost lie next to me and talk to me like she was really there. But she wasn't, Jess."

"You understand what I'm saying, don't you? Don's not here. He's dead and gone. Long gone. What's haunting you is your inability to let him go. He'd want you to find that girl he once knew, the one that he fell in love with and let her live her life…not this wraith that you've become. You've got a family now. All your hopes for keeping Don's memory alive rest in your sanity and that little boy over there. If you have those things, well, then Jess…he'll never really leave you."

He chuckled softly. "I know it sounds a little…clichéd. But it's true. Claire's still with me in here, but I had to move on. Just like you need to move on now."

I stared at him, aghast. "But how'd you _know?"_

"C'mon, Angell," he chuckled again, looking at me in that little way. Like he could see right through me. "Talking with your girl friend? On speaker phone? She had your voice. I saw the little signs, the same lost grip on reality that I had."

I looked at him and realized he was right. I needed to find my grip on reality and resume life, the way it should be….no fairytales, no late night conversations with ghosts. And definitely no more hallucinations.

"You're not lost. You just need….a guide. I can help you…all of us can. Just let us in and let Don go."

One hand closed into a fist on my knee, an unspoken resolve.

You only live once.

* * *

_9:37 am, May 14, 2010_

"This is the exact moment you died, one year ago." I said, my voice low, looking up at the ceiling as I turned away from the clock on my nighstand.

The apparition breathed beside me, a weary sigh escaping its translucent lungs. "Yeah. Certainly feels like yesterday that I was young and spry and in love."

It looked at me, its blue eyes not so blue anymore. The apology there was unmistakable, but everything else was intangible…too far away to reach.

"You won't mind if I let go?"

"I'd prefer it if you did. I'm tired…I've got eternal rest to get to."

I chuckled, feeling a deep relief settle in the pit of my stomach. "Then it's settled. I'll raise our son and, when I die, we'll see each other again. For real."

"It's a deal, baby. Just say when."

I got up from the bed, saying nothing at first. But when I looked back to respond, there was nothing there. Not even a trace of him where he'd been lying just a few seconds before, just a few inches from me.

In one last goodbye, I reached for Don's pillow, burying my nose in the fabric as I searched for his cologne. The scent was fading.

But then I looked over at my little boy, playing blocks with Mac and Stella while Hawkes and Adam watched from their perch on the couch, laughing along with the group as Donnie's blocks tumbled to the ground. That little laugh, that tiny musical laugh…someday, I hoped, it would be just like his father's. He had his daddy's clear, blue eyes…his daddy's thick black hair…everything about him screamed Donald Flack.

Why waste time on hallucinations when I had our baby, his memory, sitting in my living room playing with his blocks?

Waiting for me.

"Nah," I said gently, putting the pillow back on Don's empty side of the bed. "Maybe later."

* * *

.FIN.


End file.
